Alamosa man convicted in 1996 murder case

CENTENNIAL, Colo.— Sometimes, things said in the past can totally change the present.

On the basis of a confession made in 2005, a former Alamosa man was convicted Nov. 15 of first-degree murder in the death of his wife in 1996.

It was the second murder conviction for Michael Jim Medina, 42, already serving a 45-year prison sentence for the May 2005 drowning of his 16-month-old son, Degan, at the Monte Vista sewer lagoon.

He concocted an elaborate report detailing the disappearance of Kimberly (Kimmy) Greene-Medina in October 1996, and the case grew cold when she wasn’t located.

What tripped him up was a statement he made to Degan’s mother, Becky Garel, that he believed Greene-Medina was cheating on him with a co-worker, so he drove her to a field east of Aurora, pummeled her with a bat and pulled her into a hole he had dug, where he buried her, listening to her gag on the dirt.

Medina was warning Garel what he could do because he suspected she was cheating on him.

He also threatened to kill Degan and himself to punish her. The toddler drowned later at the lagoon and Medina was picked up while walking along a Monte Vista road.

Both Garel and Medina were in abusive relationships with Medina and had filed for divorce from him.

Publicly, Medina claimed his wife had walked to a nearby gas station to buy cigarettes and never returned. Another claim was that Kimmy had gone out to use the phone.

Her father, John Greene, who now applauds the fact that justice has been served, said Medina’s explanations of his daughter’s disappearance didn’t make sense.

“Why would Mike say that Kimmy walked to the station to make a phone call since she had a phone in the house?” he asked, adding that there were vehicles at her disposal, so she wouldn’t have been walking.

She also left behind an $800 paycheck from her job as a shuttle dispatcher at Denver International Airport and her daughters, then ages two and three.